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A New Media Journal of Sociology and SocietyWed, 13 Dec 2017 15:59:07 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.1Trump’s manipulation of mass consciousnesshttps://www.sociology.org/trumps-manipulation-mass-consciousness/
https://www.sociology.org/trumps-manipulation-mass-consciousness/#respondWed, 13 Dec 2017 15:50:52 +0000https://www.sociology.org/?p=3491A little article I wrote for The Conversation about the sophisticated manipulation of mass consciousness.

Trump’s manipulation of mass consciousness

We like to think of our memories as sepia celluloid snippets of our life upon this Earth.

We think they “reflect us” and remind us of the person we like to be. True, memories can be iffy sometimes. We don’t always remember all the details, but mostly our memories are real.

For a long time, scientists backed us up. Early memory researchers thought that most memories retained some connection with reality. To be sure, memories were elaborately constructed in a bubbling and boiling cauldron of expectation, emotion, motivation, personal opinion, prejudice and self-delusion — what we scientists call, in our typically obtuse way, self-induced, systematic distortations. But there would usually be some element of reality.

Psychologists have demonstrated that a skilled manipulator can create memories out of the fantastical thin air. Psychologist Julia Shaw does this in experiments with students. Using basic psychology, she can convince 70 per cent of her subjects that they committed a crime, when in fact they never did. It is “alarmingly easy” to do, she says.

How does she achieve this remarkable fabrication?

First, she makes people trust her. Second, she establishes her authority. Third, she constructs their new memory by invoking, through image, visualization and narrative, the subject’s imagination.

Like a potter at her wheel, she moulds and shapes the memory, layering in detail and reinforcing through repetition. Finally, she fires the new memory in the kiln of social pressure and group membership. Voila, the student is a convicted criminal!

Human survival requires group coherence

It’s shocking, but understandable, from an evolutionary perspective. Neurological mechanisms that create malleable memory do not make us sheeple, but they do go a long way towards creating group identification and coherence, an absolute requisite for human survival before advanced civilization.

Malleable memory is an evolutionary thing, and a lot more common than you think.

For better or worse, we’re all doing it all the time, unconsciously or consciously.

Even — perhaps especially — Donald Trump.

Like Mickey Mouse in Fantasia, he uses his Twitter magic wand to exploit this “malleable memory effect” to achieve ultra-right economic and social goals.

U.S. President Donald Trump gestures as he walks towards Air Force One at JFK airport in New York on Dec. 2.(AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

And, finally, he invoked group membership and social pressure to lock it all down. He divides Americans into “winners” and “losers,” and invites the winners to stand on his side. They apparently heed his call:

Addicted to accumulating cash?

I imagine he’s having a good chuckle. While everybody moralizes and judges, he simply “gets it done.” He is making America great again, for the filthy rich. Under the discredited guise of trickle-down economics, he is accused of trouncing on everybody, and possibly taking us all to war, so he and his brethren can legislate their conservative agenda.

U.S. President Donald Trump prepares to board Marine One recently on the South Lawn of the White House.The Associated Press

So what to do? I suppose that depends on whether you’re a fan of trickle-down economics or not, or think Trump’s a dangerous traitor or not. Personally, I’m on the side of Will Rogers and the IMF, both of whom say, in their own special way, trickle-down economics is a joke.

Written by Michael S.

Michael S. (Dr. S.) is a scientist, sociologist, author, mystic, and mystical poet whose interests are human psychology, human society, spirituality, consciousness, global pedagogy, and global transformation. He’s busy writing about a dozen books all of which are aimed at enlightening the people and transforming the planet in line with the purpose, and for the benefit of, all. Visit his academic profile or his academia.com website, read some of his scholarly papers, view his video Money Moksha, and read his economically enlightening book, Rocket Scientists’ Guide to Money and the Economy.

]]>https://www.sociology.org/trumps-manipulation-mass-consciousness/feed/0The Importance of Human Touchhttps://www.sociology.org/importance-human-touch/
https://www.sociology.org/importance-human-touch/#respondSun, 03 Dec 2017 13:38:00 +0000https://www.sociology.org/?p=3486Here is something for parents and their children (that’s all of us) to consider. Being held and touched in a loving and affectionate manner helps us develop healthy genetics, and increases our life potential. Although the research is nascent and early stage, scientists are beginning to show that “The amount of physical contact between infants […]

]]>Here is something for parents and their children (that’s all of us) to consider. Being held and touched in a loving and affectionate manner helps us develop healthy genetics, and increases our life potential. Although the research is nascent and early stage, scientists are beginning to show that “The amount of physical contact between infants and their caregivers can affect children at the molecular level. ”

From the article.

“The study showed that children who had been more distressed as infants and had received less physical contact had a molecular profile in their cells that was underdeveloped for their age — pointing to the possibility that they were lagging biologically.”

and

“In children, we think slower epigenetic aging might indicate an inability to thrive,” said Michael Kobor, a Professor in the UBC Department of Medical Genetics who leads the “Healthy Starts” theme at BC Children’s Hospital Research Institute.

Lack of touch isn’t the worst thing that happens to children in childhood. I think back on my own through the lens of what I know today and I’m horrified by what my parents and teachers did to me (physical abuse, emotional abuse, neglect, abandonment, public shaming). And my childhood wasn’t particularly bad compared to some others I’ve met.

In another article on Toxic Socialization I suggest that we might all be victims of toxic socialization. to one extent or another. If that’s the case, and if something as gentle as touch can impact genetics, might it be reasonable to suggest that the entire human race is suffering from genetic damage and undeveloped human potential arising as a consequence of Toxic Socialization? If that is reasonable to suggest, and if it is (as I think very likely) true, we got a major global problem on our hands here.

Written by Michael S.

Michael S. (Dr. S.) is a scientist, sociologist, author, mystic, and mystical poet whose interests are human psychology, human society, spirituality, consciousness, global pedagogy, and global transformation. He’s busy writing about a dozen books all of which are aimed at enlightening the people and transforming the planet in line with the purpose, and for the benefit of, all. Visit his academic profile or his academia.com website, read some of his scholarly papers, view his video Money Moksha, and read his economically enlightening book, Rocket Scientists’ Guide to Money and the Economy.

]]>https://www.sociology.org/importance-human-touch/feed/0The Problem With (some) Atheists Part Two – Closed Mindshttps://www.sociology.org/problem-atheists-part-two-closed-minds/
https://www.sociology.org/problem-atheists-part-two-closed-minds/#respondThu, 30 Nov 2017 18:34:55 +0000https://www.sociology.org/?p=3480An short little pointer in the direction of reality and truth, suitable for atheists and agnostics of all stripes

The trouble with atheists, in addition to the fact that they are fighting with a delusion, is that a lot of them think that people with religious or spiritual sensibilities, people who think/believe there is more to life than the material world/natural evolution, are conservative, reactionary, and stupid. No point in denying this. Over the years I myself have been called a lame space-cadet, and some other things, for expressing and exploring human spirituality. The problem is that materialists and socialist scientists have convinced themselves they have all the answers (or at least the better answers), and that looking at human spirituality is a step backwards towards a primitive past, and away from a glorious utopian/revolutionary future.

But it is really? Is authentic human spirituality reactionary and are people who explore/believe stupid? While I would have once counted myself on the side of those would answered the questions in the affirmative, after a decade of exploration, I am no longer so sure. In fact, I think it may be exactly the opposite.

I recently read, for the first time ever, the gospels of the new testament Christian bible and what I found when I read them was startling to the critical sociologist in me. When I read the gospels, which are about the (I think scholars agree) historical figure of Jesus Christ, I did not find reaction, passivity or republican/conservative style politics, I found a revolutionary figure and an anti-authoritarian, anti-elite, socialist whose followers where telling people “If you want to join us, give away all your possessions and come live in the collective.” Don’t believe me? It is written right there in the Catholic scriptures.

If you are an atheist/agnostic and you can overcome the autonomic gag reflex that many have when somebody says the name “Jesus” long enough to keep an open mind, and if you are interested in maybe changing your views a bit, part one of this study is provided in part one of my article series “Rock and Roll Jesus:Anti-authoritarian, political emancipator, and revolutionary liberator” a draft of which is open to comment, here. Take a look. As Karl Marx once said, or as I think he should have said, you have nothing to lose but your (spiritual) chains.

Written by Michael S.

Michael S. (Dr. S.) is a scientist, sociologist, author, mystic, and mystical poet whose interests are human psychology, human society, spirituality, consciousness, global pedagogy, and global transformation. He’s busy writing about a dozen books all of which are aimed at enlightening the people and transforming the planet in line with the purpose, and for the benefit of, all. Visit his academic profile or his academia.com website, read some of his scholarly papers, view his video Money Moksha, and read his economically enlightening book, Rocket Scientists’ Guide to Money and the Economy.

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Written by Michael S.

Michael S. (Dr. S.) is a scientist, sociologist, author, mystic, and mystical poet whose interests are human psychology, human society, spirituality, consciousness, global pedagogy, and global transformation. He’s busy writing about a dozen books all of which are aimed at enlightening the people and transforming the planet in line with the purpose, and for the benefit of, all. Visit his academic profile or his academia.com website, read some of his scholarly papers, view his video Money Moksha, and read his economically enlightening book, Rocket Scientists’ Guide to Money and the Economy.

World War Three is being waged in cyberspace

My introduction to advanced communication technology (i.e. the Internet and World Wide Web) came in 1999.

Having grown up in the two-channel universe of the 1960s and ‘70s, I was agog at the power it represented. The technology was nascent at that time — not many web pages yet existed — but I could still see the potential for good. Here was a technology that I felt could really save the world.

I am not ashamed to say that when I first saw the Web, I was filled with schoolboy naivete. I wanted to help, so I did. I created the first electronic sociology journal, did a few more things after that, and with a massive anticipatory grin, watched and waited for utopia.

Manipulating Trump supporters

The grin turned to an outright frown when I read in that same study by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a multidisciplinary scientific journal, that moderate Republicans, moderate libertarians, male Republicans and the “deplorable” poor — President Donald Trump’s base — were the most susceptible to manipulation.

Supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump cheer in Corpus Christi on Aug. 29, 2017, as the president received a briefing on Hurricane Harvey relief efforts.(AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Then there was the historic 2016 election of Trump. That’s when my smile turned to a grimace. During that election campaign, Trump called out to Russia to hack the election, which they did. Spewing hundreds of thousands of dollars of fake ads into Facebook, Twitter and probably Google, they attacked America full-on. They didn’t do it with bullets and bombs; they did it with bits and with bytes, and with the help of American CEOs and American technology.

It was certainly an attack, and there were definitely explosions, but they were in cyberspace. Desensitized by Hollywood violence, we are not paying attention to the attack on our minds.

You can argue about whether the Russian attacks were effective, or puzzle if Trump and his family are traitors, but the fact remains — we are under attack, and if something isn’t done, it’s going to get worse.

Annual hacking event

You don’t have to be a prophet to see what’s coming. The battle plan is in plain sight.

Consider the Russian company Positive Technologies. This firm holds an annual event known as PHDays, or “Positive Hack” days. At this event, which started back in 2011, the world’s best and brightest hackers get together to train.

It doesn’t sound too threatening until you learn about “The Standoff.” The Standoff is a military hacking competition with a blatant military goal: Take out a city’s telecom, heat, power, oil, and rail infrastructures. The city’s citizens are even offered up as a resource for the hackers. They are easy to exploit, says the rule book. They use “smart gadgets every day.” “They are vulnerable to social engineering.” They are “prepared to share [their] secrets.”

Sitting back in my chair with a thump, I see it clearly.

There’s a global war going on, and a global arms race to go with it. The arms race is not a race for physical weapons, it is a race to develop cyber-weapons of psychological, emotional, financial and infrastructure attack. By now, the arms race is so far advanced that it makes the leaflet campaigns of the Second World War and the U.S. government’s Operation Cornflake look like toddler’s play.

Wake up and realize we’re at war

If the horrific recent gun violence in Las Vegas, exploding racial tensions and political polarization of Western democracies are any indication, destabilization is proceeding apace.

So what do we make of this?

No. 1: Realize that global war has been declared. It’s a little hard to pin down who fired the first shot right now, but the aggressors are active and engaged.

No. 2: Understand we are all under attack, even Republicans, perhaps especially Republicans, and the poor. There may be short-term financial gain for those who benefit from the destabilization, but only a fool would think the enemy is our best friend.

Finally, if you are a private citizen, you need to start taking the cyber threat seriously. Combatants are trained to see you as easy-to-manipulate resources. You are being viciously manipulated through social media.

Your financial data is stolen and could easily be used against you. Cyber-marines are training to take out the life-giving infrastructure of your cities. Are government and corporate leaders blithely unaware, or engaged in traitorous collusion? Only time will time.

Until then, wake up, gather your loved ones, lock down your social media, and batten the hatches — the war for your mind has begun.

Written by Michael S.

Michael S. (Dr. S.) is a scientist, sociologist, author, mystic, and mystical poet whose interests are human psychology, human society, spirituality, consciousness, global pedagogy, and global transformation. He’s busy writing about a dozen books all of which are aimed at enlightening the people and transforming the planet in line with the purpose, and for the benefit of, all. Visit his academic profile or his academia.com website, read some of his scholarly papers, view his video Money Moksha, and read his economically enlightening book, Rocket Scientists’ Guide to Money and the Economy.

]]>https://www.sociology.org/new-arms-race-third-world-war-wwiii/feed/0Is Home Schooling your Kids Damaging them Socially?https://www.sociology.org/is-home-schooling-your-kids-damaging-them-socially/
https://www.sociology.org/is-home-schooling-your-kids-damaging-them-socially/#respondThu, 28 Sep 2017 17:18:27 +0000https://www.sociology.org/?p=3465Written by Michael S. Michael S. (Dr. S.) is a scientist, sociologist, author, mystic, and mystical poet whose interests are human psychology, human society, spirituality, consciousness, global pedagogy, and global transformation. He’s busy writing about a dozen books all of which are aimed at enlightening the people and transforming the planet in line with the […]

A few years ago I took my kids out of school to protect them from the physical, emotional, and psychological violence of the toxic socialization and indoctrination they experienced there. My goal was (and is) to ensure they emerge from their childhood unscathed, undamaged, and ready to connect.

My only concern over the years has been lack of social contact. Are they being emotionally/psychologically stunted by their isolation in the home? Turns out, the answer to that question is no. A recent study finds that online friendships are just as significant and meaningful as “real life” ones, meaning my kids are missing out less than some might argue. This is great. Digital culture has created an opportunity to “save” our kids from the toxic socialization and Bodily Ego-damaging experiences in the K12 system.

With more and more home schooling options becoming available all the time, at least in Alberta, Canada where I live, and with more and more parents opting in, maybe it is time we make a faster shift. We should take some of the money we save on salary, educators, and bloated and unnecessary administration, and pay actual teachers (or student teachers) to rotate between homes for weekly tutoring and support sessions with parents and kids.

This is how our family has been doing it, so we have a practical model of how this would work. We pay 25 dollars an hour for a student teacher (recently accredited) to come to our house and tutor our kids on standard curriculum supplied by the Alberta Government. If the government made that commensurate with current teacher salaries, and funded them fully for families who cannot afford, that teacher could easily handle six home sessions a week. If the cost of educating our kids is a concern, economies of scale could be achieved by asking these traveling educators to put up to two families together into one session (so the kids from one household would be tutored at the home of a friend) so they could tutor between 3 and 5 students per session.

Obviously, home schooling your kids is not for everybody, and so regular schooling systems could chug alongside. I hazard to say though, some (perhaps many) parents of all genders, would make the choice to home school their children if they received a stipend, and if teachers or student teachers could be sent in for support. From my perspective, this is a great way to avoid the damage done by toxic socialization.

Of course, one very important assumption must hold here, and that is home is a safe environment that children don’t need to escape from. This is not true of all homes. Indeed, many homes are unsafe and in them children experience forms of violence and abuse worse than they experience at school (in what modern schools are children whipped with belts and beaten with spoons?). The children in our family thrive in homeschooling because we have a “no violence” rule in our home. This means no physical, emotional, psychological, or spiritual violence. This sort of environment is an absolutely essential prerequisite for safe and effective homeschooling. It makes no sense to home school children in a home where they are not safe. If you do, you will likely end up with more disjuncture, disconnection, and pathology than if they had the escape that school would represent in this unfortunate situation.

Written by Michael S.

Michael S. (Dr. S.) is a scientist, sociologist, author, mystic, and mystical poet whose interests are human psychology, human society, spirituality, consciousness, global pedagogy, and global transformation. He’s busy writing about a dozen books all of which are aimed at enlightening the people and transforming the planet in line with the purpose, and for the benefit of, all. Visit his academic profile or his academia.com website, read some of his scholarly papers, view his video Money Moksha, and read his economically enlightening book, Rocket Scientists’ Guide to Money and the Economy.

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Written by Michael S.

Michael S. (Dr. S.) is a scientist, sociologist, author, mystic, and mystical poet whose interests are human psychology, human society, spirituality, consciousness, global pedagogy, and global transformation. He’s busy writing about a dozen books all of which are aimed at enlightening the people and transforming the planet in line with the purpose, and for the benefit of, all. Visit his academic profile or his academia.com website, read some of his scholarly papers, view his video Money Moksha, and read his economically enlightening book, Rocket Scientists’ Guide to Money and the Economy.

]]>https://www.sociology.org/is-home-schooling-your-kids-damaging-them-socially/feed/0How to be human? Abraham Maslow and his hierarchies of need (Hierarchy of Needs)https://www.sociology.org/how-to-be-human/
https://www.sociology.org/how-to-be-human/#respondFri, 01 Sep 2017 14:23:16 +0000https://www.sociology.org/?p=3459Written by Michael S. Michael S. (Dr. S.) is a scientist, sociologist, author, mystic, and mystical poet whose interests are human psychology, human society, spirituality, consciousness, global pedagogy, and global transformation. He’s busy writing about a dozen books all of which are aimed at enlightening the people and transforming the planet in line with the […]

Who are you? What is your essential nature? What is your core human being? What will it take to make you happy? How, in other words, to be human? American Psychologist Abraham Maslow had some ideas about that. Way back in 1943, Maslow suggested that humans have a hierarchy of needs, two hierarchies in fact, and that if we are going to be happy and healthy, feel satisfied and whole, then at the very least we have to meet all the needs in both hierarchies (A.H. Maslow, 1943),[1]Maslow called his two hierarchies the Hierarchy of Basic Needs and the Hierarchy of Cognitive Needs.

The first hierarchy of needs, the Hierarchy ofBasic Needs, covered a range of biologically rooted needs, from the physiological need for food and shelter all the way up to the psychological need for self-actualization (A.H. Maslow, 1943; A. H. Maslow, 1970). Maslow said that as humans, we need to eat, we need to sleep, we need to be loved, we need a sense of self-esteem, and we have to find a way to “self-actualize,” meaning we have to express our inner Self, our talents, etc. Shortly after publishing his first article, and probably as the result of his empirical investigations into peak experiences, Maslow added an additional need that he called transcendence (Koltko-Rivera, 2006; A. H. Maslow, 1962, 1969). Maslow felt that in order to survive, thrive, and be happy, we needed to meet all our basic needs, including our need for transcendence. A graphic of the hierarchy of basic needs, slightly modified to reflect my own thinking on the issue,[2] is provided below.

Maslow’s Corrected Hierarchy

Maslow felt meeting all these basic needs was very important. Maslow said that you couldn’t be a healthy and happy human if these basic needs were not met. This raises the obvious question, how do you/we meet these needs. Unfortunately, meeting basic human needs is a complicated question that gets into parenting, socialization, education, politics, economics, and even (when you get up to the top and start talking about self-actualization and connection), human spirituality. I’ll explore the question of how we meet some of our needs in subsequent articles. Here I’ll just say, you can’t meet any of your human needs alone. Whether it is the need for food, safety, love, self esteem, self actualization, or connection, you need others to help you along. This is the way it has always been. There has never been a time in the evolution of our species when we have not depended on others to assist us. This is true of our very basic needs for food and shelter (the home you are in was built by a lot of different people), and even our higher need for self esteem and love (we need somebody to love us to have our need for love met). When you start to ask the question how to be human, and when you start to ask how to get your needs met, or how you help meet the needs others, look to the quality and content of your familial, social, and economic relationships first, for it is in human relationships that all our basic needs either get met, or get thwarted.

As for Maslow’s second hierarchy of needs, the Hierarchy of Cognitive Needs, Maslow felt this hierarchy had only two needs, these being the need to know and the need to understand (Maslow, 1943, p. 385). The need to know is our basic biologically rooted need to know things, like why politicians act the way they way act, what’s 2+2, or what the sparkly lights in the sky at night are. Maslow felt our need to know was powerful and constant. Maslow said that “even after we know, we are impelled to know more and more… ” (Maslow, 1943, p. 385). Maslow said our need to know drove us deep into the details of why things work, and wide into the philosophy and even religion of who we are and why we are here.

Our need to know was important and powerful, but Maslow pointed out that just knowing things was never enough; we also need to understand, and we need meaning. According to Maslow:

The facts that we acquire, if they are isolated or atomistic, inevitably get theorized about, and either analyzed or organized or both. This process has been phrased by some as the search for ‘meaning.’ We shall then postulate a desire to understand, to systematize, to organize, to analyze, to look for relations and meanings.

Maslow called these two needs, our need to know and our need to understand, our cognitive needs, but I would prefer to call these needs combined simply our need for truth, or our need for reality. Maslow would say this is a biological/evolutionary need, and that is most certainly true. Knowing and understanding your environment is a survival thing! An organisms that does not know and understand its environment is an organism not long for this world. A graphic of Maslow’s second hierarchy of needs is provided below.

Need for Truth

Maslow based his beliefe in these cognitive needs on his clinical evidence and research work, but even without that, these needs are not controversial. Einstein, for example, said that “There is a mystical drive in man [sic] to learn about his [sic] own existence. (Hermanns, 1983). You don’t have to be Einstein to figure this out. Every parent and teacher knows that these needs exist. The need to know and understand are displayed at a very early age by every child on Earth. Whenever a child asks the questions “What is that?” or “Why is that?” they are attempting to satisfy their need to know and their need for truth.

The Importance of the Hierarchy of Cognitive Needs

From the very beginning, Maslow thought (and I agree) that these needs were important enough to be included in their own separate, though closely and synergistically related, hierarchy. Indeed, Maslow spends significant time in his 1970 book (A. H. Maslow, 1970) discussing the existence, significance, and core nature of these needs. For example, Maslow felt that these needs were evolutionary, pointing out that monkeys and other primates displayed curiosity and exploratory play. He also felt cognitive needs were a defining aspect of “psychologically healthy people,” and that unhealthy people were those who had their cognitive needs thwarted. Healthy people, people who know how to be human, he said, are “attracted to the mysterious, to the unknown, to the chaotic, unorganized, and unexplained.” Maslow also said that those have their need for truth thwarted get bored and depressed, experience intellectual deterioration, and have lower self-esteem. Finally, Maslow even suggested there were profoundly negative political implications when these needs were not met. He noted that in countries where “information, and…facts were cut off, and…where official theories were profoundly contracted by obvious facts, at least some people responded with generalized cynicism, mistrust of all values, suspicion even of the obvious, a profound disruption of ordinary interpersonal relationships, hopelessness, loss of morale, etc.” (A. H. Maslow, 1970). Maslow is probably talking about Nazi Germany above, but the relevance of his statements to the current global situation is obvious. If true, we can expect the citizens of the United States (citizens who are currently having their need to know and understand thwarted by an administration and corporate-controlled media system that display profound disregard for truth), to experience growing cynicism, rejection of values, and disruption of their intimate relationships. I would even suggest that anger, and maybe even growing hatred, might result. Clearly, the Hierarchy of Cognitive Needs is important and it should not be ignored, by psychology, by therapists or by anybody wanting to know what it means to be human.

Thankfully, even though many adults and children do not have their need for truth met, especially in our current global climate, fixing the problem is actually very easy. Maslow simply suggested Cognitive Therapy. find interesting things to know, and interesting things to understand. Basically, find the truth of this. Find Maslow suggested things like going to school part-time, finding intellectually demanding hobbies, or finding more interesting work, and these will all work. Maslow said that when he applied cognitive therapy to people who were not having their cognitive needs met, he saw great improvement in their emotional and psychological well being.

What Does this Mean for You?

I started this article with some questions. Who are you? What is your essential nature? What will it take to make you happy? What does it mean to be human? At this point, the answer that I have for you is simply this; as a human being you are at least partially defined by your body’s (your physical unit as I like to say) basic and cognitive needs. If you want to be human, if you want to honor your essential nature, if you want to be happy, you have to meet all your needs. The question now is, how do do that?

The first step to meeting your needs is to know your needs. That’s not rocket science and at this point, after reading this article, you should have a good general idea of what needs you have to meet in order to be healthy, happy, and whole. You have to meet both your basic needs and your cognitive needs.

The next step to meeting your needs is to know which of your needs are being met, and which of your needs are not being met, and why. In some cases this can be easy, as for example when your body tells you it is hungry (you feel hunger pangs) or unsafe (you feel anxiety and fear). In other cases it can be more difficult, as for example when you neither know nor understand your need for self-actualization and transcendence, or when these needs are thwarted by those who would rather keep you dis-empowered, disconnected, and in chains than see you empowered, connected, and free.

Finally, once you know your needs and you understand which ones are not being met, you have to take action on meeting these unmet needs. What those actions will be will depend entirely on the need you are trying to meet and the social/political/economic/environment situation you find yourself in. Sometimes, meeting an unmet need will be as easy as finding an interesting book, or picking up an interesting hobby. Other times, meeting your needs will be tougher, as for example meeting your basic need for shelter and a safe environment when global warming is creating chaos in your space, or meeting your basic need for transcendence in a global spiritual environment characterized by confusion, misdirection, and lie. Be that as it may, and as tough or as easy as it it might be, if you want to be fully human, if you want want to grow, aspire, and thrive, you have to meet your needs. If you want my advice, get started right away.

Conclusion

Looking at the world around me right now, I see that a basic problem of human existence is that our basic and cognitive needs are not being met. Part of the problem is that we don’t know we have these human needs, and we don’t know how important they are to meet. Now, you should be aware of both their existence, and the need to meet them. The problem is more than just a personal problem however, it is also a moral, political, and economic one. If we are to meet this planet’s human needs, we need to take a moral stand by saying it is our right, and the right of every human, to have all their basic and cognitive needs met. Once we make that moral commitment, we have to work it through our systems. We have to change our family priorities and make meeting each other’s needs the primary goal of our family dynamic. We have to change our political priorities (and our political parties) and make meeting the human needs of all people, from birth to rebirth, the top political priority. Finally, we have to change our economic system. The goal of human endeavor should not be profit uber alles. That is a spiritually retarded, evolutionary primitive, and globally disastrous way to exist. Instead, the goal of all human endeavor should be to meet human needs, period. How this would look is easy enough to conceive. Instead of prioritizing profit, power, and money, prioritize the satisfaction of human needs, both your own and the people you are responsible for (i.e. in order of descending importance, your children, your spouse, your family, your employees, friends). Of course, ideas are easy; implementation is difficult. That’s possible too, but it won’t be easy, that’s for sure.

Further Reading

Rocket Scientists’ Guide to Money and the Economy – A book that reveals the deep, dark, truth about money, the economy, and you.

Endnotes

[1] And not later, as you sometimes see people suggesting. For example, Saul McLeod from Simply Psychology suggests, in an article entitled “Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs,” that cognitive needs were developed later “It is important to note that Maslow’s five stage model has been expanded to include cognitive and aesthetic needs and later transcendence needs” (McLeod, 2007). In fact, Maslow introduced the second hierarchy in his 1943 article.

“Once these desires [to know and understand] are accepted for discussion, we see that they too form themselves into a small hierarchy in which the desire to know is prepotent over the desire to understand. All the characteristics of a hierarchy of prepotency that we have described above, seem to hold for this one as well” (A.H. Maslow, 1943).

[2] I would make two slight modifications to this basic hierarchy. I would add the human need for power alongside the human need for self-esteem, and I would reconceptualize transcendence as simply connection.

Written by Michael S.

Michael S. (Dr. S.) is a scientist, sociologist, author, mystic, and mystical poet whose interests are human psychology, human society, spirituality, consciousness, global pedagogy, and global transformation. He’s busy writing about a dozen books all of which are aimed at enlightening the people and transforming the planet in line with the purpose, and for the benefit of, all. Visit his academic profile or his academia.com website, read some of his scholarly papers, view his video Money Moksha, and read his economically enlightening book, Rocket Scientists’ Guide to Money and the Economy.

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Written by Michael S.

Michael S. (Dr. S.) is a scientist, sociologist, author, mystic, and mystical poet whose interests are human psychology, human society, spirituality, consciousness, global pedagogy, and global transformation. He’s busy writing about a dozen books all of which are aimed at enlightening the people and transforming the planet in line with the purpose, and for the benefit of, all. Visit his academic profile or his academia.com website, read some of his scholarly papers, view his video Money Moksha, and read his economically enlightening book, Rocket Scientists’ Guide to Money and the Economy.

]]>https://www.sociology.org/how-to-be-human/feed/0Don’t Tread on Me: Ideas, Images, and the Incredible Power of the Human Mindhttps://www.sociology.org/dont-tread-on-me-ideas-images-power-human-mind/
https://www.sociology.org/dont-tread-on-me-ideas-images-power-human-mind/#commentsTue, 15 Aug 2017 16:37:39 +0000https://www.sociology.org/?p=3453Written by Michael S. Michael S. (Dr. S.) is a scientist, sociologist, author, mystic, and mystical poet whose interests are human psychology, human society, spirituality, consciousness, global pedagogy, and global transformation. He’s busy writing about a dozen books all of which are aimed at enlightening the people and transforming the planet in line with the […]

Did you know, the same glass of wine “tastes better” if you pay more for it. Using MRI technology, researchers at the University of Bonn demonstrated that subjects perceived an identical drop of wine to be of better quality if they were told it cost more! Researchers call this the “Marketing Placebo Effect,” and it has been demonstrated consistently over the years.

The scientifically demonstrable fact that our expectations effect our perceptions is a fascinating phenomenon that is almost certainly not confined to the taste of wine, or marketing. It may effect our perception of reality. That is, our expectations about what we find in the world may impact what we actually perceive to exist, and how we act in the world. This “Reality Placebo Effect” likely impacts our self perceptions, our social perceptions, our social class perceptions, etc.

A personal anecdote brings the implications and power of this home. When my daughter was four she, like many children, had a speech delay. She went to see a speech pathologist, but after coming home, I could see something was wrong. Her performance at school dropped and she began to struggle with even simple intellectual tasks. Suspecting something had happened, I invited the speech pathologist over to my home for their next session so I could observe their interaction. What I saw horrified me; the speech path, through subtle gestures and negative facial expressions, was making my daughter feel stupid. I immediately fired the speech pathologist, but the damage was done. My four year old daughter, psychologically and emotionally undeveloped and completely at the mercy of this speech pathologist who was pouring her expectations into my daughter’s consciousness, absorbed the speech pathologist’s negative evaluation, with academically and emotionally disastrous results.

My daughter only saw the speech pathologist twice, one in private and once with me. but I struggled to repair the damage for over a decade , not only with her, constantly trying to bolster her self esteem, but also with her teachers, who drew remarkably inappropriate conclusions from the observations they were making. I vividly remember arguing with her grade one teacher about the cause of her spelling difficulties. Out of a list of ten words that we studied at home, she could never get more than one or two right on the exam at school. This despite the fact that she demonstrated perfect retention at home. The teacher tried to tell me this was ADD or some other kind of organic difficulty. I told her she had test anxiety because a former “teacher figure” had made her feel stupid. Now, because of that, she didn’t want to say anything or respond to anything out of fear of having some authority figure make her feel bad about herself by making some dirty face or dismissive comment.

Of course, the teacher didn’t believe me at first. Why should she? After all, I was just a typical parent, biased about my daughter and oblivious to the reality. However I persisted and after a considerable effort arguing with the teacher, she finally changed her strategy with my daughter. Instead of giving my daughter regular spelling tests, she gave her simpler word recognition tests. My daughter could easy recognize the words, she felt confident, and so she wasn’t afraid to respond. Not surprising, to me anyway, she got them all right. I still remember her grade one teacher expressing surprise that my daughter was in fact “processing information,” and didn’t have some kind of organic deficit. Long story short, the teacher administered word recognition tests for three more weeks after which she returned to administering regular class spelling tests. My daughter’s confidence in her self improved as a result and she began immediately to perform above average on regular spelling tests. This wasn’t the end of it, of course. The damage was done in an instant, but it took many more years to completely repair what a single unaware professional wrought in a single “therapeutic” session.

My daughter, who is now home schooled because I eventually got tired of all the abuse she was experiencing at school (that’s another story), is now a thriving artist who loves social sciences and art. But like I said, it was a lot of work. I worked constantly and diligently in close quarters with my children to undo the damage done to them at school.

The take away from this is simple and self-evident I feel. It is not only that our expectations impact how we perceive the quality of wine, our expectations, about our self and others, have profound, long term, potentially devastating consequences on our perception of self and reality, our experiences of that reality, our actions in that reality, how others see and treat us, and the sort of life that we develop as a result. My daughter developed performance anxieties which impacted her ability to act/perform. Teachers assumed (probably because of their own expectations), ADD or other organic deficits. The interaction of expectations (both of self and others) thus feed the growth of a pathological reality. Had I not stepped in, fired the speech pathologist, and fought with her teachers, who knows where my daughter would be now. I suspect the reality that she and others would have constructed for herself, based on expectations and self-perceptions implanted in her by the speech pathologist first, and her teacher’s later “confirmations,” would be quite different. I am almost certain that without extended, long term, costly, intervention she would not be the intelligent, self-aware, confident, compassionate, planet loving vegan that she is today. Of course, society is not set up to pay for the damages caused by events such as these, and so I personally absorbed the cost of all this in time and effort; nevertheless, it is worthwhile thinking about the costs to society, like lost productivity, expanded medical costs, expanding policing costs, etc., of such “toxic socialization” events (Sosteric, 2016). A single negative interaction can potentially cost society, the medical system, and even organizations, tens of thousands of dollars in actual physical/psychological disabilities, and in ephemerous and hard to track lost potential. This is not a little thing.

The morals of the story are equally self-evident, I feel. On a personal level, examine your expectations about yourself and the things around you. Isolate the source of these expectations. Pay attention to what others think of you. Be aware of the profound power of the human mind, as expressed in the “placebo effect.” Fight their negative evaluations. Be aware of the “Reality Placebo Effect.” Even a single dirty look, or a single off hand negative comment, can have consequences that ripple throughout your reality, and your life. And of course remember, it is not just about you. Your interactions with others, your perceptions of their “intelligence” or whatever have, even expressed subtly and indirectly, an impact on their expectations, which in turn has an impact on their perception, their actions, and, over the course of many years, their reality. I personally don’t believe in the “butterfly effect” when it comes to weather (a butterfly that flaps its wings in Athabasca can have an impact on weather in China), but it may be a thing when it comes to the human mind and its powerful effects on reality. If the anecdotal example from my own life is any indication, a single toxic butterfly can, through the rippling effect of expectation, action, and interaction, destroy a person’s life.

Moving forward, this is something to think about, not only in our own lives and for own sake and the sake of our children, but also in our interactions with colleagues, students, and the rest of the world outside. Be careful about the expectations you lay on yourself and others. Be positive and affirming in your interactions with others always; especially if you have power over them, because your ideas, images, and expectations will make a world of difference in the life of somebody know. (Sosteric, 2012).

Further Reading

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/08/170814092949.htm

Sosteric, M. (2012). The emotional abuse of our children: Teachers, schools, and the sanctioned violence of our modern institutions. The Socjourn, March. https://www.academia.edu/33737469/The_emotional_abuse_of_our_children_Teachers_schools_and_the_sanctioned_violence_of_our_modern_institutions

Sosteric, M. (2016). Toxic Socialization. Socjourn.

Written by Michael S.

Michael S. (Dr. S.) is a scientist, sociologist, author, mystic, and mystical poet whose interests are human psychology, human society, spirituality, consciousness, global pedagogy, and global transformation. He’s busy writing about a dozen books all of which are aimed at enlightening the people and transforming the planet in line with the purpose, and for the benefit of, all. Visit his academic profile or his academia.com website, read some of his scholarly papers, view his video Money Moksha, and read his economically enlightening book, Rocket Scientists’ Guide to Money and the Economy.

]]>https://www.sociology.org/dont-tread-on-me-ideas-images-power-human-mind/feed/1Michael Jackson – All I want to say is they don’t really care About ushttps://www.sociology.org/michael-jackson-all-i-want-to-say-is-they-dont-really-care-about-us/
https://www.sociology.org/michael-jackson-all-i-want-to-say-is-they-dont-really-care-about-us/#commentsWed, 14 Jun 2017 14:04:15 +0000https://www.sociology.org/?p=3355Michael Jackson may have been the King of Pop music, but towards the end of this life, he was standing with the poor and disenfranchised and calling for a global revolution--a far cry from the brotherhood pop music of Thriller.

The Powers that Be. In Sociology we call the PTB the bourgeoisie. I think that’s an ugly word with lots of negative baggage, so I just prefer to just refer to them (as I do in my Rocket Science Guide to Money and the Economy) as the Family.My creative commons book, the Rocket Scientists’ Guide to Money and the Economy: Accumulation and Debt (free DL ), is a gentle introduction to the Capitalist Regime of Accumulation (otherwise known as (o.t.a) The System), and the people behind it. The book calls for global transformation, and is conciliatory and welcoming in tone; but really, the pain and suffering that lies behind it is of Olympian proportion. As anybody who is “woke” will understand, a fundamental global r/evolution is required.

So what does this have to do with Michael Jackson? Well, most people are unaware of this, because they were distracted by concerted assaults on his integrity and humanity, but the truth is, towards the end of his life, Michael Jackson became increasingly political–and by that I mean revolutionary. He saw what was going on (Earth Song), and he used his powerful artistry not only to “out” the Dangerous PTB and the Dangerous direction they were moving us in, but also to uplift the masses. There was no doubt about it. As evidenced by the remarkable album cover from his remix album Blood on the Dance Floor, his thinking is crystal clear. As Michael says, there is blood on the dance board (the album cover, as you can see, shows Michael dancing on a chessboard). His final words are dramatic. All they are concerned with is Money and he is so tired about it that he could just Scream. When he does, out come the words

Why do you support them, because “they don’t really care about us?”

There are three different video versions of this song. A prison Version, a Brazil version, and another version shot with Philippino prison inmates! You need to see all of them. Consider his song, “They don’t really care about us.” In this song, he points out a very simple fact which is that they (the PTB) don’t really care about us. In this song, Michael dances with the poor, imprisoned, and disenfranchised (there are three different video versions of this song!). Taking “the people” under his wing, he takes direct aim at the System and the Family, pointing out over and over, “they don’t really care about us.” Watch the videos below and see for yourself.

In my view as a sociologist and a mystic, Michael’s song is a clear and powerful call to revolution. This is especially evident in the original prison version which to my mind is a dramatic and powerful call to action. I imagine that an artist of his stature suddenly turning, suddenly waking up, calling out the Dangerous system, flipping off the Family, and defiantly calling for global revolution, would have caused more than a night or two of indigestion in the hallways of power. You can draw your own conclusions about the deeper meaning of it all, and what goes into protecting power and privilege on this planet, but one thing is obvious from the song. Michael was woke, and he wasn’t going to shut up and be quiet about all the horrible things that he saw.

All I wanna say is that
They don’t really care about us
All I wanna say is that
They don’t really care about us

Tell me what has become of my life
I have a wife and two children who love me
I am the victim of police brutality, now
I’m tired of being the victim of hate
You’re ripping me off my pride
Oh, for God’s sake
I look to heaven to fulfill its prophecy…
Set me free

All I wanna say is that
They don’t really care about us
All I wanna say is that
They don’t really care about us

Tell me what has become of my rights
Am I invisible because you ignore me?
Your proclamation promised me free liberty, now
I’m tired of being the victim of shame
They’re throwing me in a class with a bad name
I can’t believe this is the land from which I came
You know I really do hate to say it
The government don’t wanna see
But if Roosevelt was living
He wouldn’t let this be, no, no

All I wanna say is that
They don’t really care about us
All I wanna say is that
They don’t really care about us

All I wanna say is that
They don’t really care about us
All I wanna say is that
They don’t really care about
All I wanna say is that
they don’t really care about
All I wanna say is that
They don’t really care about us

Meet “The Family,” read…

Sociology is the quintessential discipline of “awokeness”. You can take my course, Sociology 287, the Sociology of Awokness (a.k.a. Sociology 287: Introduction to Sociology), from Athabasca University.

Written by Michael S.

Michael S. (Dr. S.) is a scientist, sociologist, author, mystic, and mystical poet whose interests are human psychology, human society, spirituality, consciousness, global pedagogy, and global transformation. He’s busy writing about a dozen books all of which are aimed at enlightening the people and transforming the planet in line with the purpose, and for the benefit of, all. Visit his academic profile or his academia.com website, read some of his scholarly papers, view his video Money Moksha, and read his economically enlightening book, Rocket Scientists’ Guide to Money and the Economy.

]]>https://www.sociology.org/michael-jackson-all-i-want-to-say-is-they-dont-really-care-about-us/feed/1Try this at home (or in your classroom)https://www.sociology.org/try-this-at-home-or-in-your-classroom/
https://www.sociology.org/try-this-at-home-or-in-your-classroom/#respondThu, 01 Jun 2017 13:23:36 +0000https://www.sociology.org/?p=3334What is money? Chances you and the ones you teach don't really know. But you can change that. Read the book Rocket Scientists' Guide to Money and the Economy, watch the film, and be enlightened.

]]>Try this at home, or in your classroom. Ask five individuals the question “What is money?” Write their answers down. Notice anything peculiar? They’ll all be able to tell you what they use it for (i.e. buying things), but they won’t be able to tell you what it is. Not a single one of them will have a good explanation. In fact, after reviewing their answers you might even suspect that they don’t really know anything at all. This should be shocking to you, if you think about it for a bit. Given the significance of money to all life on Earth, you’d think we’d all be clear about just what it is. But if you try this at home, the truth will be right there in front of you. Nobody, at least at our lowly level in the global hierarchy, really has a clue.

So what, as an educator or parent, are you going to do about this massive and global educational failure? Thankfully, doing something about it is not hard because, as we see in the video below, money is very easy to understand. As I teach in the video below, and as everybody should be able to understand, money is simply abstracted labour. As abstracted labour, money gives those who have lots of it godlike power over the world. But, as we see in the video, it’s not all robes and scepters. Money is God to a few, but it may be the end of the world for us all. Money has allowed us to build the technological marvel of modern society, but it has also brought us, via the war, violence, and cascading ecological collapse, to the brink of global destruction, and the possible end of the human experiment. It is not hyperbole. Anyone with eyes can see.

Of course, I think salvation is still possible here. But, we’re gonna have to educate the planet a little first. Start by trying this at home, or in your classroom. Ask the question, “What is money?” To answer the question, show the video below. Then, discuss to your heart’s content. I’m sure you and your friends/family/coworkers/students will find this exercise not only extremely enlightening, but positively transforming as well.

Feel free to post feedback in the comments section at the bottom of this article.

Example Classroom Assignment

Example Assignment

The Book The Rocket Scientists’ Guide to Money and the Economy (RSGME) is a sweeping tutorial on money, the economy, debt, exchange, and a number of other issues (like environmental degradation, inequality, austerity programs, etc.). The Film Money Moksha is a broad overview of the content of the book RSGME. For this assignment you are to pick one topic that is discussed in the book and video and expand on that topic in a short essay. Your short essay should be between 1600 and 2200 words (double spaced, 12 point Times New Roman) and should make use of a combination of Internet resources newspaper articles (as appropriate), and scholarly books and journal articles. If you need help finding scholarly articles on your topic of interest, please contact the Athabasca University library.

Suggested Topics

You can pick any topic you want as long as it is marginally related to content in The Rocket Scientists’ Guide to Money and the Economy and the associated film. Make sure you demonstrate that you have read the book and watched the film. If you are having trouble choosing, here are few suggestions.

The causes of the French Revolution / The causes of the crises in Syria / The outcome of austerity measures. Debt crises in Greece (or any other country).

Canadian debt, Canadian debt trends.

The historical emergence of the police.

The political function of the police (i.e. maintain regimes of accumulation).

Food banks, history, purpose.

The health costs of poverty and poor nutrition

Perception Sanitation

The ideology of the western media

Indoctrination (examples, purpose)

World debt / World Financial Crises

World political crises

World economic crises

World ecological crises

George Orwell’s 1984 book (review, analysis, report)

Debt Jubilee. What is it. How it would solve the crises

The necessity of better education

Consciousness / values / mystical experience

The spirituality of scientists

The spirituality of revolution

Abraham Maslow / Peak Experiences

Mystical experience / and political transformation

The reenchantment of Science

To complete the essay, you will need to track down a few outside sources. Wikipedia, magazine articles, and web pages are OK but you must supplement those with at least two academic articles. Don’t forget to cite your sources. You can use whatever citation style you like. I use Chicago Style but you can use whatever style you have been trained in (like for example APA). If in doubt, check with you tutor on your topic of choice and confirm with them the resources that you are planning to use.

Essay Rubric

This is an academic essay/paper and you will be assessed using academic standards. This includes:

Grammar/punctuation spelling (5%)

Sufficient use of academic / external sources (5%)

Proper formatting (5%)

Proper citation (10%)

Content (60%)

Logic/clarity of your paper (15%)

Percentage in brackets relay the relative weight of each of the considerations. Obviously, focus the most energy on your content and the logic clarity of your paper, but if you want an “A” you need to pay attention to everything else. A few spelling or grammar errors and failure to cite properly can drop you a full grade quite easily.

Written by Michael S.

Michael S. (Dr. S.) is a scientist, sociologist, author, mystic, and mystical poet whose interests are human psychology, human society, spirituality, consciousness, global pedagogy, and global transformation. He’s busy writing about a dozen books all of which are aimed at enlightening the people and transforming the planet in line with the purpose, and for the benefit of, all. Visit his academic profile or his academia.com website, read some of his scholarly papers, view his video Money Moksha, and read his economically enlightening book, Rocket Scientists’ Guide to Money and the Economy.

]]>https://www.sociology.org/try-this-at-home-or-in-your-classroom/feed/0“Who Can Find a Woman of Value?” Negative Gender Socialization of Young Christian Girlshttps://www.sociology.org/who-can-find-a-woman-of-value-negative-gender-socialization-of-young-christian-girls/
https://www.sociology.org/who-can-find-a-woman-of-value-negative-gender-socialization-of-young-christian-girls/#commentsMon, 09 Jan 2017 13:46:08 +0000http://www.sociology.org/?p=2188Young children’s Christian entertainment is some of the most demeaning, dismissive, and demonizing media for the under-8 set. What is more remarkable, Christians making up 70% of the American population. Christian gender socialization is thus a major source of reactionary gender experience and as such must be addressed if forward progress is to be made.

American media teaches young girls they don’t matter – this is not a ground-breaking statement in the area of gender socialization. But what if you only showed your kids religious entertainment? Would young girls get the message they are important, valuable, and good?

No.

Young children’s Christian entertainment is some of the most demeaning, dismissive, and demonizing media for the under-8 set. With Christians making up 70% of the American population, we must address this or we will forever have only a partial understanding of gender socialization in our society.

First, some examples.

While 280 women appear in the Bible, only one of the 25 most popular kids’ Christian songs contain the name of a woman. When looking at song titles and chapter titles, one finds 60% of them contain a man’s name while only 13% contain a woman’s name. A First Bible Story Book (Hoffman: 1997) has an illustrated table of contents with 31 living creatures.

21 are animals.

15 are men or boys.

4 are women.

In the pages of that same book, readers find the story of Noah’s Ark, which takes eight pages to tell. On those eight pages, not one woman is mentioned.

Not one.

There is no textual or illustrated indication that a female person existed anywhere on the face of the Earth, despite the Bible specifically and repeatedly referring to at least four women who were on the Ark.

The story of Daniel takes four pages. No women or girls.

The story of Jonah takes six pages. No women or girls.

The story of the feeding of the five-thousand takes four pages. No women or girls.

The story of the Last Supper takes four pages. No women or girls.

This demonstrates that it is possible to write a story in young children’s entertainment that totally excludes one gender, but it is only done when the exclusion is female.

As a result, young Christian girls – and boys – regularly read and watch stories that have no female characters at all, but never read or watch a story without male characters, socializing them to believe females are supplementary while males are a necessity in any event of importance.

Veggie Tales, a video series in which animated vegetables teach kindness, sharing, and other lessons, has ten episodes dedicated to Biblical stories. One is about a woman. Like so many other examples, Esther: The Girl Who Became Queen (2000) defines her by her relationship to men. A grown woman in the Bible, Esther is portrayed as a young girl, manipulated by her husband, his aide, and her uncle, with almost no independent thoughts other than self-doubt.

In Eve and Her Sisters: Women of the Old Testament (Zeldis: 1994), a female-focused chapter book, a man’s name appears in every single story. Similarly, Tapestries: Stories of Women in the Bible (Sanderson: 1998) is explicitly gender conscious, telling the stories of Biblical women. Of course, the term “women” appears in the title. Women are the main subject of every page. Women are, indeed, the subject of the entire book. And the first word on the first page is “Adam.”

Abraham is named in the very first sentence of page two.

Isaac is named in the very first sentence of page three.

Of the thirteen women from the Old Testament in the book, eleven have a man’s name in the first sentence of their story, a rate of 84%. Of the ten women from the New Testament in the book, eight have a man’s name in the first sentence of their story. The message to young girls is that the most important aspect of a woman’s life is her connection to a man.

It is difficult to imagine a book specifically designed to highlight men of the Bible in which a woman is named in eighty percent of the stories, much less, the first sentence of their stories.

The cover of the book Who’s Who in the Bible: An Illustrated Guide (Motyer: 1998) features eleven illustrated figures on the cover. Ten of them are men and one is a woman. Further emphasizing the importance of the woman (or rather the lack thereof), all ten male characters are portrayed standing, while the lone woman in hunched over on her knees.

In John Green’s coloring book Women of the Bible (2006), many of characters are rendered practically invisible by extremely passive narratives and an almost burdensome over representation of men. Some examples include Rachel, Dinah, and Zipporah. Below are the words that accompany the coloring images, in their entirety.

Rachel: “Jacob, grandson of Abraham, meets Rachel, a young and beautiful shepherdess, at the well of Haran. He later asks her father Laban for Rachel’s hand.”

Dinah: “When Prince Shechem lays eyes on Dinah, daughter of Jacob and Leah, he falls in love with her instantly. However, his bold and aggressive actions towards Dinah bring the wrath of Dinah’s brothers on Shechem and his people.”

Zipporah: “Moses meets Zipporah, daughter of Jethro, when she and her sisters bringtheir flock of sheep to the well. Moses marries Zipporah, but as Moses becomes a great leader, he and his wife spend little time together.”

What exactly have young children learned about the women on these pages? Each is a silent bystander in her own story. In telling the experiences of three women, seven men are referred to by name.

Both young girls and young boys notice when more than twice the number of men appear in a story than women, and reasonably infer the meaning to be that men are more important.

The series Animated Stories from the New Testament uses fictionalized characters and scenarios to teach moral lessons (Rich: 1987 – 2005). There are twenty-four episodes, many of which have no major female characters. When women or girls are included, it is usually in negative, often sexual, terms.

For example, one episode features three characters who need forgiveness.

Matthew the publican.

Jonah the sick man.

Miriam the harlot.

This kind of messaging is particularly damaging to young girls, who use entertainment to find their place in the world. When children’s behavior is compared to their parents and their favorite characters on TV, boys tend to imitate their parents more. But girls imitate their parents and television characters equally (Donohue: 1975). This means Miriam the harlot may have as much influence on a young girl as her Christian mother does.

Another problem area for the imaging of women in young children’s Christian entertainment is the over-representation of “bad” women coupled with a pervasive minimization of the misdeeds of men. From Green describing Shechem’s rape of Dinah as the result of love to The Story Keepers’ Justin being described as “sometimes bossy… [but] this is balanced by a good heart and sense of compassion” (2010), men are rarely portrayed as “bad.”

Ten percent of the women in Green’s book are David’s wives, two of whom were married to other men when David met them. Young children are given a picture to color of Bathsheba bathing that includes David leering at her from the corner of the page. (They married after he manufactured a deadly battle to ensure her husband’s death.) The non-judgmental presentation of David’s peeping, polygamy, abuse of power, and murder reinforces the gender norm that men are important, strong, influential, and beyond reproach.

In the Amazon description of the coloring book, Bathsheba is defined as “the mother of Solomon, whose beauty drove David to murder,” a statement which simultaneously excuses the behavior of a man and lays responsibility for it at the foot of a woman.

In Green’s book, women are presented to young children as “bad” almost twice as often as they are presented as “good.” By comparison, men are presented as “good” and “bad” almost equally, with slightly more positive portrayals than negative.

Women

Positive

Neutral/ Beyond the Control

of the Woman

Negative

Beloved

Beautiful

Adulterous

Caretaking

Having been made aware

Arrogant

Courageous

Rescued

Bad influence on her husband

Generous

Unable to bear a child

Bitter enemy

Hard-working

Young

Complaining

Helpful

Commanding

Impressive

Deceptive

Inspiring

Disguised

Kind

Disobedient

One of Christ’s most

Hiding out

devoted disciples

Lying in wait

Prayerful

Lying

Protective

Plying a man with wine to kill him

Prideful

Robbing

Sorceress

Strong-willed

Tempting

Treacherous

Unable to resist temptation

Witch

Men

Positive

Neutral/ Beyond the

Control of the Man or Boy

Negative

Founder

Grandson of Abraham

Aggressive

Great Leader

Impressed

*Bold

Great Prophet

Instructed

Desirous

Having Prowess

Old

Drunken

Helpful

Rescued

Evil

Justly entitled

Soldiers

Fear-ridden

Landowner

Jealous

Military Leader

Murderous

Object of Wonder and Adoration

Selfish

Possesses large herds (rich)

Spying

Powerful

Weary

Protector

Wrathful

Rejecting adultery

Saving his people

Vanquisher of the enemy

Warrior

Wealthy

*Euphemism for rape

The religious entertainment industry is damaging young Christian girls, and no one is saying anything about it. Feminists need to step up and help create change for millions of American girls. Christian parents and churches need to demand equal gender treatment for their entertainment dollars. This is just one strand of the larger fight to have equal, fair, and positive imaging of women in American media, but feminists, parents, and the Church must work together to demand that all American daughters get the message that they are important.